Miloslav Rechcigl, Sr.

Miloslav Rechcigl Sr. (13 May 1904 – 27 May 1973) was a Czech politician, miller, business executive and editor for Radio Free Europe.

Biography Rechcigl was born in Chocnějovice near Mladá Boleslav in the Kingdom of Bohemia (present-day Czech Republic) on 13 May 1904. He was an active member of the Agrarian Party of Czechoslovakia before the World War II. In 1935 he was elected to the Czechoslovak Parliament as its youngest member. In this capacity, he devoted his energies to economic problems, and served on several committees, relating to agriculture, industry and commerce, and international relations. He was a reporter for trade agreements for a number of countries, and for agricultural trade issues, in general. After two failed attempts by the Secret Police to arrest him while he was hospitalized with a serious illness, he illegally crossed the border to Germany in May 1948.

Furthermore, he also worked in professional agricultural organizations and became a member of all such organizations in his district. He was a council member of the Czech Agricultural Board in Prague, chairman of its economic section, a member of the cultivator committee, and a member of the Central Office of Agricultural Board in Czechoslovakia. He became a member of the Czechoslovak Agricultural Academy and officer of agricultural economists. In addition, he held membership in the auditing committee for the County Farmers' Savings Bank in Mnichovo Hradiště.

Rechcigl was vice-chairman of the water agricultural organization in his district and an officer of the Water Agricultural Union of Czechoslovakia, chairman of the Economic Council in Mladá Boleslav, executive secretary of the Economic Institute of North Bohemia, and vice president of the Union of Economic Councils, as well as chairman of the Committee for Regulating the River Jizera and its tributaries.

Rechcigl's extensive archival material has been deposited in the University of Minnesota's Immigration History Research Center (IHRC)

Family Rechcigl's son is biochemist and former Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences President Mila Rechcigl.